The radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) claimed responsibility for the attack, citing Israel's assasination of the organization's leader, Abu Ali Mustafa, earlier this year, said Haaretz.

AFP said that all Israeli ministers were ordered Wednesday to stay at home until further notice after the minister was shot and seriously wounded, Israeli television said.

A senior physician at Jerusalem's Hadassah Ein Carem Hospital said that Zeevi had been shot in the head. News reports said he may also have sustained a neck wound.

Zeevi, leader of the far-right National Union-Yisrael Beiteinu bloc, announced Monday that he and party colleague Avigdor Lieberman were resigning from the government in protest over cabinet decisions they viewed as too soft on the Palestinian Authority. The resignations were to have taken effect later on Wednesday.

Zeevi's wife said Wednesday that she found him "lying, without a pulse" on the floor of the hotel hallway in front of their room.

The gunmen, whose identity was not known, apparently escaped. The hotel is located adjacent to occupied Arab east Jerusalem and to Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank - Albawaba.com